


Life's Worth All the Dying We Do (Say It's True)

by peacefulboo



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Gods and Goddesses, Prophetic Dreams, chosen family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 11:28:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11147484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefulboo/pseuds/peacefulboo
Summary: There was a time when Keyleth thought she'd made peace with outliving her loved ones. Those days are over. Keyleth dreams of falling, of dying, and of the Raven Queen's demands. Vox Machina has one more task in front of them before they can find peace, one way or another.Soon, young Keyleth. Your path is as clear as his.





	Life's Worth All the Dying We Do (Say It's True)

**Author's Note:**

> If a story can be both modern and canon, then that's what this is. I hope y'all enjoy taking this ride with me.

Her death wakes her up. Again. 

She takes a moment to suck in a breath, her eyes wide and heart pounding. Keyleth used to wake violently from these dreams, panic seizing control of her body as she’d start from bed with strangled moans and tears. Now she knows what’s coming before she even hits the rocks and water and her response is less dramatic. 

When she was a child she was told that, if you are falling in your dreams and you hit the ground, you will die for real. It’s one of those stories that is told over and over, and taken for truth, by young and old alike; even though it sounded like it couldn’t be true, even though she *knew* it wasn’t true (because she knows life and death in her bones), there was always this fear that someday she’d be dreaming and she’d hit the bottom and that would be that. 

She hits bottom all the time now in her dreams and she can definitively say that dying in your dreams doesn’t magically stop your heart. 

No, hitting bottom in your dreams doesn’t kill you. But hitting rocks after jumping off a 1000 ft tall cliff? That will. The fear that’s always present when she wakes from this particular dream is immediately replaced by a flush of shame that starts at the top her head and creeps down the back of her neck. Fuck she’s stupid sometimes. 

It’s dawn and she’s managed 7 full hours of sleep before the dream wakes her this time, so instead of turning to curl up against Vax’s back, breathe in his scent, and let his steady breathing lull her back to sleep, she rolls off the edge of the bed as quietly as she can, shoves her feet into some furred house boots, shrugs into her cardigan and heads out to get her day started. 

Her muscles slowly unclench as she goes about heating some water in the electric kettle, selecting which tea she’ll drink to start her day - peppermint and licorice - and scooping it up into her favorite diffuser. She lets stray thoughts flit through her mind as she waits for the water to boil and then for the tea to steep, not examining any one thought for longer than a moment before she lets it go. The rays of the sun are starting to crest the mountain peaks on the opposite side of the ravine now, so she heads out to the front porch with her tea to greet them. 

Percy is there, his journal in hand and a cup of coffee and his ashtray on the table they’ve set next to the porch swing. His eyes are shadowed and Keyleth knows her best friend probably hasn’t slept at all yet, so she silently climbs up onto the swing, ducks under his arm and rests her head on his shoulder as she watches the sunrise. He gets like this when Vex spends more than a few days out of Whitestone--too much time in his own head and not enough time with people he trusts leaves him anxious and touch starved in a way that he would still scoff at if you said it outloud. 

Keyleth and Vax had arrived back to Whitestone the night before, but Percy had been holed up in his workshop and Keyleth and Vax had both just wanted to fall into bed (their favorite bed) and sleep off the last week’s worth of negotiations. She feels bad now, listening to Percy’s too fast breathing and occasional muttering as he sketches. 

She stays with him until his hands and heartbeat slow and he sighs out, deep and shuttering. As usual, Keyleth doesn’t look at his sketches without invitation. And frankly, given the things he’s been sketching lately, she’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to see it. They’ll only feed the sense of foreboding that’s been creeping up her spine and settling in her chest since she died four weeks ago. 

“I seem to have left my lighter inside. Would you?” Percy asks as he places a cigarette between his lips. 

“Yeah,” she replies as she lights up her hands with flame so he can light it, then lets the magical flame recede back into her body. 

She watches the smoke rise off the cherry and blow out from Percy’s mouth, and lets herself be mesmerized by the sight for a few moments. Soon enough the rest of them will be awake and they’ll have to face the coming reality.

As the sun fully rises above the mountains and the forest around them awakens and the river not far from their property somehow sounds louder, Keyleth takes three deep cleansing breaths, kisses Percy on the cheek, then heads inside with a, “Come eat and then go take a nap, Percy. We’re going to need your brain when Vex gets back.”

He groans but nods in agreement and rises to follow Keyleth inside, helping her start breakfast. It’s simple. Fried eggs (most end up with intact yolks), toast, coffee, tea, mountain berries and whipped cream. She also beats another dozen eggs, throws some chopped up ham and cheese into the mixture, and pours it into a baking dish for Grog’s breakfast. 

Pike wanders out of her room a few minutes before the food’s ready--she must have arrived late last night as well--and plops her sleepy ass on her stool. Keyleth can’t help but slide over to give her a tight hug. 

“Hey, hey, Keyleth,” Pike says, immediately sensing Keyleth’s rising tension. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Keyleth breathes into her friend’s hair before whipping back around and finishing with the food. There is no one in Keyleth’s life that grounds her in quite the way Pike does. The way Pike grounds the whole team, really. On her most alert and with it days, Keyleth gets sad when she realizes that there’s probably no one like that for Pike. 

“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” Pike tells her, voice still rough with sleep. 

Percy pours Pike some coffee, pushing the creamer and sugar her way as well. Keyleth watches as he lays a hand on Pike’s shoulder, squeezing lightly, but notes that he doesn’t linger. 

Keyleth is washing some of the prep dishes in the large kitchen sink when she feels Vax’s hands settle on her shoulders and his cool, dry lips against the back of her neck. She leans back against him as he pulls her back into a full hug and another little piece of her relaxes. 

“Leave the rest for me. I’ll clean up after,” he murmurs in her ear and she nods as she turns so she can hug him back.

They stay like that, her forehead against his, breathing each other in there in the middle of the kitchen, until the oven timer goes off, and Keyleth moves to pull Grog’s eggs out of the oven. 

As Keyleth and Vax put the rest of the food on the table, Keyleth watches Pike slip back to Grog’s room and smiles when a still sleep subdued Grog follows Pike back into the kitchen and plops down at the table. 

They’re all mostly quiet as they tuck into their meals, which is increasingly normal for them. For most of their time together as a team, all their meals have been boisterous affairs full of unspent energy and good humor, but the last two weeks have found them all more subdued. The exhaustion clings to each and, for Keyleth at least, the dread that clings to the air taints the taste of all of she eats. 

“Kiki,” Vax calls, taking her hand in his, his voice calm but questioning. 

“Yes?” she replies, unsure what she’s missed. 

“You’re trembling,” he tells her with a worried half smile. 

“Oh,” she replies, squeezing his hand in acknowledgement and shaking her head to clear away the fog. 

“You okay, Keyleth?” Grog asks. 

Well fuck. She must look like complete shit if Grog is asking. 

“I’ll be fine after a bath and some coffee,” she assures him with her best attempt at a smile. 

Pike catches her eye and raises her eyebrows in question. Keyelth shakes her head and turns back to her food. It doesn’t escape her notice that Pike immediately starts to talk about how the renovations of Sarenrae’s temple are coming along at Greyskull, effectively pulling the attention off of Keyleth’s dazed state. 

Before long, Pike has goaded Percy into heading to his room to take a nap, and shooed Keyleth back to the sleeping quarters to take a bath. She even gives her some bath salts with hints of peppermint and citrus, and a promise that they will perk her right up. 

Keyleth drags Vax into the bathroom with her. The baths here are big enough for the both of them and since she still hasn’t been able to shake the dread that the dreams have injected under her skin, the need to be touching him, to be held by him, knowing that there’s a chance they won’t get many more chances to just be quiet together, has taken over in a way she’s never really felt before. 

“She came to me again,” she whispers as she burrows back into his embrace, her face turned into his chest. 

He brushes his fingertips up and down her arms and hums in response. “Me, too,” he tells her. 

It’s different for him. He’s sure of his path and the terror he once felt is long gone. He trusts his Queen and knows that she will keep him on the path of justice and balance. He’s accepted his place, even if that means she leads him on the path to his destruction. 

Keyleth has found no peace in his acceptance. She is not the Queen’s champion. She feels like her pawn. She feels expendable. And no matter how ready she thought she was to lose her team… to lose Vax, a year of relative peace has softened her heart again and given her too much space to dream and hope. And she'd started to believe that maybe she wouldn't be the only one to ascend, that maybe she wouldn't have to live out her long life missing them. Missing him. But now? That hope seems to have slipped out of her grasp. 

She doesn’t want to do this, feels no pull to seek out Orcus, is angry that they have to. But then she looks at Vax, at the way his chest rises and falls, so full of life, and she knows a deal is a deal. But damn it, they’ve done enough. Haven’t they all done enough for this world? It’s someone else’s turn now. 

_Soon, young Keyleth. Your path is as clear as his._

Keyleth can fight it all she wants, but something bigger and darker than they can imagine is on the horizon. Soon, as the Queen says, she’ll need to be brave and strong. She'll need to be the tank her beloved knows her to be. But for now, she turns in Vax’s arms, presses kisses to his throat and lets herself fall into him.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr (peacefulboo.tumblr.com) and Twitter (@boofadil).


End file.
